Russian is the most widely spoken language in Europe and the most widespread of the Slavic languages. It is the first language to about 145 million people and the second language to an additional 110 million.

Russian is the official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan as well as one of the official languages of the United Nations. It belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, and is therefore related to Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, as well as the modern Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages including English, French, and Irish, respectively.

Today Russian is primarily spoken in Russia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once part of the USSR, where it was widely taught in school. However, younger generations are usually not fluent in it, because Russian is no longer mandatory in the school system. It was widely taught in Asian countries such as Laos, Vietnam, and Mongolia due to the Soviet influence, and is still used as a lingua franca in Afghanistan by various tribes.

Sizeable Russian-speaking communities also exist in the U.S. (especially in large urban centers such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Chicago.) According to the United States 2000 Census, Russian was reported as the language spoken at home by 1.50% of population, or about 4.2 million, placing it at #10 of languages spoken in the United States.

Russian is written using a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet, consisting of 33 letters. Setting up Russian documents as Word files and as content on websites requires some preparation and knowledge of Cyrillic typesetting issues. To read Russian correctly in HTML format and on the Internet, one needs to choose the option "Cyrillic (Windows 1251)" option under "Multilingual Unicode" in whatever software or browser you will be using.

Using standard Windows-based Unicode fonts and choosing Cyrillic encoding does the trick for Russian text in most cases. There are certain Unicode fonts for Windows that contain correctly addressed Russian characters. (For example Arial, Courier, Tahoma, Times and Times New Roman.) Please keep in mind that Cyrillic will not display correctly if Unicode fonts are not used.

When translating into Russian it is important to know your target audience and where they are located to reach them effectively. For example, when deciding how to communicate with immigrants from the former USSR, Russian should be your first choice because Russian was the official language. However, for many immigrants, Russian is not their native tongue, but rather their second language. This includes Ukrainians, the largest non-Russian ethnic group of the former USSR. Even though both languages are written in the Cyrillic alphabet and are similar, they are not mutually understandable. Belarusian is between the two and is often understood by both Russians and Ukrainians.

The viaLanguage Solution

viaLanguage provides accurate, quality Spanish to English and English to Spanish translations quickly for reasonable rates. The following are just a few of the reasons that we are the preferred Spanish translation source for so many companies.

• We employ experienced, native-speaking translators to ensure precise translations for your target audience.
• Translation involves more skill than just knowing how to speak source and target languages. Therefore, we carefully select our translation and localization teams for their subject matter experience, knowledge of dialects and culture of the audience.
• To account for the different regional variances and dialects, viaLanguage has a process to create custom Spanish Style Guides and Translation Glossaries. These resources are valuable tools to determine appropriate expressions of words and ideas for the specific audience.
• viaLanguage has the expertise needed to make sure your translated documents, websites or brochures are formatted properly.